“An inn! How extraordinary! How very ... very ...”
“Extraordinary?” Nodding her head in the direction of the hidden mansion she added: “I am her companion.”
“Lady Tillington’s?”
She assented coolly, was silent, while Loughlin ransacked his brains for some delicate reference that would clear him over this ... this ... cataract. But he felt stupid—that confounded potation at “The Three Pigeons”! Why, that was where he had thought of her so admirably, too. He asked if she cared for the position, was it pleasant, and so on. Heavens, what an astonishing creature for a domestic, quite positively lovely, a compendium of delightful qualities, this girl, so frank, so simple!
“Yes, I like it, but home is better. I should love to go back to my home, to father, but I can’t, I’m still afraid—I ran away from home three years ago, to go with my mother. I’m like my mother, she ran away from home too.”
Orianda picked up the open parasol which she had dropped, closed it in a thoughtful manner, and laid its crimson folds beside her. There was no other note of colour in her white attire; she was without a hat. Her fair hair had a quenching tinge upon it that made it less bright than gold, but more rare. Her cheeks had the colour of homely flowers, the lily and the pink. Her teeth were as even as the peas in a newly opened pod, as clear as milk.
“Tell me about all that. May I hear it?”
“I have not seen him or heard from him since, but I love him very much now.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, but he is stern, a simple man, and he is so just. We live at a tiny old inn at the end of a village near the hills. ‘The Black Dog.’ It is thatched and has tiny rooms. It’s painted all over with pink, pink whitewash.”